Sunset Park is Brooklyn's last stronghold of waterfront industry. Stretched out along approximately 50 blocks, its industrial zone houses numerous small businesses and four major industrial complexes - Industry City, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Bush Terminal and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. According to the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corp, "over 20,000 people are employed by Sunset Park's manufacturing and industrial sectors."

Today, the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is being redeveloped by its operator, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). This 88 acre industrial complex has been underutilized for several years, with empty warehouses, abandoned offices and rotting locker rooms. Some of these spaces are now being demolished as part of the NYCEDC's Sunset Park Vision Plan. This plan, which also encompasses the $36 million park at Bush Terminal, promises to "strengthen the area as a center for industrial growth" with $40 million earmarked for "creating rail infrastructure and a new public berth" and a "$48 million investment to rehabilitate docks" at the terminal. After these improvements are complete, the terminal will be home to the Axis Group - an "auto-processing company" and Sims Recycling - "a modern recycling center."

Hopefully the NYEDC Vision Plan will help retain Sunset Park's working waterfront for many decades to come.

Despite this epic history, Fresh Kills is now a rather quiet and serene site. Its landscape has more in common with a western prairie then with Staten Island's heavily forested hills. Low scrub brush, a few scattered trees and winding dirt roads look out on Fresh Kills itself, which is a peaceful freshwater stream meandering between man-made hills. Deer and osprey have made this their home.

Unlike the breached landfill of Dead Horse Bay, there is no garbage visible at the Fresh Kills site. Most of its trash mounds have been capped. However, as the eye becomes accustomed to the vast, seemingly empty landscape, it begins to pick out anomalous details. A complex system of passive vents, gas extraction wells and flare stations dot the hills. Designed to harvest or burn off the noxious gasses building up beneath the landfill's shell, they are a constant reminder of the area's hidden toxicity. If not for these reminders of the man-made origins of this unnatural wasteland, Fresh Kills would be a beautiful estuary.

No section of Fresh Kills Park will be open to the public before 2010, although occasional bus tours are sometimes offered by the parks department.